


Ace: The Prodigal

by f0rt1ss1m0



Series: Divergent, but for gays [2]
Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent - All Media Types, Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe, Child Abuse, Genderbending, Rule 63, rewrite of Four: The Transfer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-10-27 06:11:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20755646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f0rt1ss1m0/pseuds/f0rt1ss1m0
Summary: It's Choosing Day, and Abigail Eaton is three years too young.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Due to popular demand (read: my brain telling me that it would be cool), this is the story of Ace. Spoilers for Transcendent, obvi.
> 
> If you're new to the Transcendent universe:  
Transcendent is a self-indulgent rewrite of the first Divergent book, possibly the whole series if I can be damned to stick with a series longer than 6 months. We will see. This story can be read before or at the same time as Transcendent, it shouldn't matter, but there are certain details that are very different. For example, Tobias is a butch lesbian with anxiety and depression and Beatrice is a redheaded black bisexual who chooses Candor, of all things. Why? Because it's self-indulgent. Because I like to develop characters without having to create them. Because I can! It's a free country. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy as much as I did, because this was awesome to write.

I woke in the silence before my six o’clock alarm, like always. In ten minutes sharp, the small buzzer would ring. Three minutes later, my father would push through the door and make sure that I was awake. He’d find me just crawling out of bed, rubbing my eyes as if having just been pulled from sleep. He’d scold me for my indulgence of an extra three minutes in bed.

But I was always awake before the alarm went off.

My steps muffled by my socks, I crept across my room and pushed the plastic window blinds aside. It was late May. I couldn’t yet see the sun over the fields of flat grey roofs, but the sky was clear blue. If I imagined hard enough, I could feel the cool morning air on my cheeks.

My mother was the one who taught me to steal moments like these, moments of freedom, though she didn’t know it. Sometimes, when I couldn’t fall asleep, I might hear the master bedroom door click shut, and I might glimpse her shadow passing across the gap at the bottom of my door. If I went to the window, I might catch her walking down the streets. To where, I never knew. She would always return before the sunrise. But she stole these moments when she was home, too, standing over the sink with her eyes closed, so distant from the present that she didn’t even hear when I spoke to her.

She’d taught me something else, too — that the free moments always had to end.

Only a couple of minutes had passed before I heard the click of my father’s door. Fear leapt in my throat. I darted back to my bed. Before I could bundle myself in my blankets again, my door opened.

“Why are you awake before your alarm?” he asked.

I sat up. “I couldn’t sleep,” I said quietly.

His brow twitched. Then his gaze moved to the window. The blinds were still pulled to the left, a landscape of blue sky beyond.

“Why are your blinds back?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

His brow furrowed deeper. He walked over, pulled them back across the window, and turned the knob to open the slats.

“Abigail, what are windows for?”

“Light,” I replied. “Not views.”

He raised his chin at me. He pushed up his glasses, his gaze scanning the sparse room. Worried for a scold about idleness, I started making my bed, tucking my grey sheets and blankets tightly around the thin mattress. It was always cold in my room, so I had an extra blanket that I folded. I could feel my father’s gaze on my back as I knelt, pulled a trunk out from under my bed, and tucked the extra blanket inside it.

My mother gave me the trunk when I was young and told my father it was for spare blankets, that she had found it in an alley somewhere. But when she put it in my room, she didn’t fill it with spare blankets. She closed my door and touched her fingers to her lips and set it on my bed to open it.

Inside the unlocked trunk had been a blue sculpture. It looked like falling water, but was really glass, perfectly clear, polished, flawless.

“What does it do?” I had asked her at the time.

“Nothing obvious,” she said, and she smiled, but the smile was tight. An afraid smile. “But it might do something in here.” She tapped her chest, right over her heart. “Beautiful things do.”

And for years, I filled the trunk with objects that others might call useless: old spectacles without glass in them, fragments of discarded motherboards, spark plugs, stripped wires, the broken neck of a green bottle, a rusted knife blade. I didn’t know if my mother would have called them beautiful, or even if I would, but each of them struck me the same way that sculpture did, as secret things, as valuable ones, if only because they were so overlooked.

Four months ago, we had a night that was colder than most, and my father came to find a blanket. Now the trunk held real blankets, as it should. I still had a scar on the side of my neck where a shard of glass cut me as he threw me to the floor.

As I latched the trunk shut, my father knelt next to me.

“Don’t lie to me again,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He reached to brush a lock of my long black hair away from my face. I prayed he didn’t see it, didn’t see how even his slightest touch terrified me.

“I love you, Abigail,” he said.

“I love you too.”

“You don’t understand yet. But this is for your own good.”

“I know.”

He stood.

“Get dressed quickly,” he said. “You have to make breakfast. I’m leaving early.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Aptitude tests are today. Candor appointed a new director to their Academic Integrity department; I’m meeting her before we begin the tests. I won’t be home until later, so I expect you to make dinner, as well.”

“I will,” I said.

He left, closing the door behind him. The very least he could do was respect my privacy when I dressed, and I was glad for it.

Aptitude tests. The sixteen-year-olds would be choosing today. For a few minutes, I sat on my floor, looking over my shoulder. The sun was rising over the roofs of Abnegation houses, forming a yellow square on my floor. The square was sliced by the slats of the blinds, and I knew there was a metaphor there, but I didn’t pity myself enough to complete it in my head.

I was thirteen. I had plenty of time left to think about it.


	2. Chapter 2

School was school — better and worse, at the same time.

I knew that it couldn’t be a good thing that I flinched at every noise, that I had trained my ear to distinguish between the hum of the vents and the nearly-identical hum of the garage door opening. I hadn’t decided whether to blame my father or myself for the fear. At school, I didn’t have to think about that. I could relax the muscles in my shoulders. I could let myself slouch just slightly.

But on the other hand, school was a den of total strangers. Sitting at the Abnegation table during lunch was like being surrounded with grey ghosts, who I couldn’t see and who couldn’t see me. My father never permitted me to go to most community events. He claimed that I’d cause a disruption, that I’d do something to hurt his reputation. Perhaps it was that I was growing too fast. I had sprouted three inches in a year and put on so much weight that I couldn’t explain, and it all happened so quickly that I had to wear too tight, too short clothes for weeks before the new clothes came. Undoubtedly my father was ashamed of how I looked. I didn’t care. I was happier in my room, in silence by myself, than in silence with the deferential, apologetic Abnegation children.

Would it be different if I wasn’t always absent? I couldn’t say. The other Abnegation were wary of me, convinced there had to be something wrong with me, that I was ill or immoral or strange. They never said it. But I knew. Even those willing to nod in greeting never met my eyes.

The cafeteria had an unusual energy that day. It would be the last lunch before our summer break. Additionally, the sixteen-year-olds, in the tables at the center of the room, had been there for hours, waiting to take their aptitude tests. None of them were allowed to share their results, so everyone was preoccupying themselves with the typical pastime of their faction. The Erudite tables were covered in reading material — none of them really studying, just making a show of it. The Candor conversed loudly, sometimes about politics, as they should, but I caught more than one mention of fictional characters from a popular book series. The Amity laughed, smiled, shared candy amongst themselves, bit their lips if something irked them and continued smiling, in the end. The Dauntless were raucous and loud, slung over the tables and chairs, leaning on one another and teasing, getting in occasional tussles that ended in someone getting stabbed in the wrist with a pencil.

They all had their flaws, but I loved them. I wanted any of them. Any other faction than mine, where everyone had already decided that I wasn’t worth their attention.

After school, the halls turned into a flood of students. A flood that I watched from the inside of a classroom, of course. Abnegation always waited for everyone else to leave before getting to their feet. I knew the path they would take out, drifting through the front doors to the bus stop. They could be there for over an hour letting other people get on in front of them.

I couldn’t take any more of the silence. Instead of following them, I slipped out a side door and into an alley next to the school. I’d taken this route before and was used to moving silently, my grey dress blending into the shadows as I crossed a gap right behind the crowd of Abnegation at the bus stop.

This time, I was a little careless. As I crossed the gap, my eyes caught on a girl, holding a boy’s hand. Only she saw me. I knew her, kind of — she and the boy were twins, two years younger than me, so eleven. Still in Mid Levels. Andrew and Natalie Prior’s children. The girl had an interesting face, deep tan with a smattering of freckles. My father told me that she had red hair, but it was too attention-grabbing, so she wore a scarf to cover it.

She didn’t need red hair to stand out. Her stare locked on mine as if it could see my every thought. I dashed behind the wall again, fearing that she would cry out, and then I’d be caught. But when I peeked out again, she was just still staring. As if in a silent dare.

I turned and took off running.

I made it to the end of the alley and into an empty street, leaping over a pothole in the pavement. My Abnegation apron snapped in the wind, and I yanked the ribbon that held it around my waist, instead knotting it around my neck and letting it trail behind me like a cape. Like wings. I pushed my sleeves up to my elbows as I ran, slowing to a jog only when my legs couldn’t handle the full sprint. The city whirled past me. Nothing could stop me, no one.

But I had to eventually, my chest burning. I braced myself against my knees for a second, panting. Then I wiped my stray hair out of my eyes and stood straight.

I had entered the factionless wasteland that lay between the Abnegation sector and the rest of the city. At every faction meeting, our leaders, usually speaking through my father, urged us not to be afraid of the factionless, to extend our hands and assist them in any way we could, whenever we could. But it never occurred to me to be afraid of them.

I moved to the sidewalk so I could avoid the sinkholes in the road and look through the windows of the buildings. Most of the time, all I could see was old furniture, every room bare, bits of trash on the floor. When most of the city’s residents left — as they must have, since our current population didn’t fill every building — they must not have left in a hurry, because the spaces they occupied were so clean. Nothing of interest remained.

When I reached a building on the corner, though, a flicker of something caught my eye. The room in the window’s view was as desolate as any of the others, but past the doorway inside I saw a single ember, a lit coal.

I pressed my fingertips against the discolored window, sensing for any resistance. At first it wouldn’t budge, and then I wiggled it back and forth, and it sprang upward. I paused to listen for anything, a sound, a voice, any hint of a factionless presence. But there was only silence. Perhaps they’d just left. The coal before my eyes was brighter than ever.

I pushed my torso through the window first, then my legs, topping to the ground inside in a heap of limbs. My elbows stung. They’d scraped on the concrete floor. Grimacing, I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket to dab the blood.

The building smelled of cooked food and smoke and sweat. In the next room, the windows were blacked out by paint and dirt, letting only weak sunlight filter in. The floor was littered with curled pallets and old cans, crusted with bits of dried food. A small charcoal grill sat below a hole in the center of the ceiling. Probably to let the smoke out. Most of the coals were white, their fuel spent, but that one was still lit, suggesting that whoever was here was here recently. And judging by the smell and abundance of old cans and blankets, there were quite a few of them.

I was always taught that the factionless lived without community, isolated from one another, in constant, unsatisfied conflict. Now, looking at this place, I felt suddenly wary, caught off-guard, as one does when something doesn’t add up to what you’ve been taught to believe as a child. What would stop them from forming community, just like we did? It was in human nature. The question that I couldn’t answer was this one: why did it frighten me?

“What are you doing here?”

The sudden voice traveled through me like an electric shock. I whirled around. Standing in the doorway was a dusty-faced man, wiping his hands on a ragged towel.

Swallowing, I tried to make myself relax. It wasn’t easy. “I was just…” I looked at the grill. “I saw fire. That’s all.”

“Oh.” The man tucked the towel into his back pocket. He wore black Candor pants, patched with grey Abnegation fabric, and a blue-striped white shirt with a red symbol on the front that didn’t belong to any faction. The symbol had a bear. His puffy black hair was bunched in a ponytail. He was lean as a rail, but he was young, and looked strong. Strong enough to hurt me.

“Thanks, I guess,” he said. “Nothing’s on fire here, though.”

“I…I know that now,” I said.

He moved to a cabinet and pulled out a brown glass jug. I startled back for a second, recognizing the familiar shape of an alcohol jug — the dangers of alcohol were preached viciously in Abnegation. I knew that it made people angry, unpredictable.

“Homemade sweet mead,” he said. “You’re too young for it.”

I didn’t say anything. He shrugged, poured the liquid into a mug with a broken handle, and sat against a bedroll in the corner.

“You’re scared out of your wits,” he observed.

“I’m not,” I lied.

He gave a strange sort of smile, as if he could see right through it. “You’re still here, though.”

Again, I said nothing.

“If I wanted,” the man continued, “I could smash this mug against your head, knock you cold, do what I pleased. You not scared of that?”

I hesitated. Perhaps we were taught not to fear the factionless, but we were taught to never venture into the projects without a partner or an adult; we were taught to run, to know when danger was near, to call the Dauntless cops who were always there to break up a charity project gone wrong. But I met the man’s warm brown eyes, I saw how the muscles in his shoulder and upper body were relaxed underneath the soft fabric of his shirt, I examined the calluses on his hands and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were from work, honest work. Not from gripping a belt too hard.

“I know scarier people,” I said quietly.

He took a deep gulp of the mead. “We all do,” he agreed. He glanced back, met my eyes again, and tilted his chin. “Where have I seen you before?”

I knew I couldn’t have met him before, not where I lived, surrounded by identical houses in the most monotonous neighborhood in the city, surrounded by people in identical grey clothing with identical hair pulled into buns. Then it occurred to me: hidden as my father tried to keep me, he was still the leader of the council, one of the most prominent people in our city.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I said in my best Abnegation voice. “I’ll be going now.”

“I do know you,” the man said. “You’re — Evelyn Eaton’s daughter, aren’t you?”

I stiffened. It was years since I heard the name. My father wouldn’t speak it, wouldn’t even acknowledge it if he heard it.

“How did you know her?” I asked.

He hesitated, just for a half second. “She volunteered down here a lot. Had a memorable face. Married to a council leader, too, thought everyone knew her.”

Sometimes, I knew people were lying, just because of the way the words felt when they pressed into me, uncomfortable and wrong. However he knew my mother, it wasn’t because she handed him a can of soup once — he knew her face well enough to see it in me. I had caught enough glimpses in the mirror to know I didn’t look anything like either of my parents. I was too tall, too stocky to belong to either of them. Most people didn’t look closely enough to see all the things Mom and I had in common. Our dark, narrow eyes, our round faces, our straight, frowned eyebrows.

But at the time, I didn’t think too much of it. A bitter taste had settled on my tongue.

“She died, did you know?” I said. “Years ago.”

“Oh. No, I didn’t know.” His mouth tightened. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded and looked at my shoes. On the outside, I felt strange, standing in this dank place that smelled of bodies and smoke, among the bottles and empty cans and neglect and rejection. The Abnegation spent so much time helping the factionless on the streets that we never stood in their homes, and it was unfamiliar. But inside, something was stirring in my chest, and I wanted to know more, I wanted to ask so many questions about what this was all like. Freedom. Not belonging. Perhaps that was where my mother got it from.

But all I said was, “Thank you for your hospitality.”

The man’s face flickered with something I couldn’t quite name. “You going back?”

“I have to,” I said.

“You know,” he said, “your mother told me something once. Said that inertia carried her to Abnegation, and fear kept her there. It was the path of least resistance.”

Setting down his mug, he rested his elbows on his knees and glanced at the charcoal grill. The last coal was now dark, cold.

“I like to think that she eventually found what she wanted,” he said. “That resisting is worth the pain.”

Anger flared in my chest. He didn’t have any right to talk about my mother like that, like she belonged to him and not to me, not to our family. She wasn’t special to him. He didn’t have any right to put words in her mouth, to try to make me question everything I remembered about her just because she may or may not have served him food once. He shouldn’t have been telling me anything at all — he was nobody, factionless, separate, nothing.

“Yeah?” I snapped. “Look where resisting got you. Living out of cans in a dump. Doesn’t sound worth it to me.”

I started towards the doorway the man came from. I knew I’d find an alley door somewhere, but I didn’t care where, so long as it got me out of here.

As I hurried down the hallway, the man called after me, “I’d rather eat out of a can than submit to a faction.”

I didn’t look back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> major MAJOR tw for child abuse. this was a really hard chapter to write and it might be really hard to read, and i do apologize. please read with discretion.

When I got home, the house was empty. I went to the kitchen and opened the window.

Not all Abnegation families held the belief that windows were just as bad as mirrors, but my father did. The kitchen window was the only one in the house that wasn’t nailed shut, so as to let out smoke or smells. I used it to let the spring air in. Only when I was alone, only when he wasn’t home.

There were a lot of things I did when he wasn’t home. Little acts of resistance. Could I really say that any of them were worth doing? Was the factionless man right? It almost made me laugh. In the moment, my little acts of resistance were wonderful, beautiful indulgences. But every other time, I felt so guilty that it made me want to die. Disobedience was so selfish. My father really did want the best for me, didn’t he? Wanting to leave, wanting any other faction or life, wanting anything at all — selfish, selfish, selfish. This kind of guilt was worth it? Absurd.

And yet I could never stop myself. I always came back to the things that caused me so much guilt.

“Late”, for my father, was past dark. I had more than enough time to do what I wanted to do. I could get dinner ready quickly enough. I had just gotten my period for the first time about a year ago, and sometimes it made me crave rich food so bad that no other food would suffice. I was constantly hungry, but my father refused to let me have second helpings. Thus was born my guiltiest pleasure — I was learning to cook delicacies.

In a house where all our food, especially our sugar and spices, was subject to careful inventory, I had to be painfully cautious when hoarding food. I could only do it when I was already cooking something else. And I had to spread the stealing out so that it wasn’t noticeable. When my father’s back was turned, I’d slip a pinch of salt or flour into the bags I kept in the pocket of my apron. I’d pretend to spill dried rice on the floor and, instead of throwing it away, scoop it in a napkin that I hid inside a sock ball. I had a secret stash of cooking oil in an empty bottle of hand lotion (that had been the hardest to slip away).

This morning, when I made breakfast, I had scrambled the eggs, told my father that I had used three, but actually only used two. The third egg was temporarily stored behind the milk. I decided to make fried egg rice for myself. My mother used to make it when I wanted an after-school snack and my father wasn’t home yet. Had she taught me all of my rebellious habits? Quite possibly. She taught me to time the fried rice days with the days we had meat for dinner, so we could slice bits off the meat cuts and put it in the rice. We were going to have pork tonight. Pork and egg fried rice it was.

I cooked the rice first. When it was done, I set it aside on the countertop, took out a small iron skillet and my precious cooking oil, and coated the bottom of the skillet with a generous tablespoon. Then I went to the window and breathed my last of the fresh air. I couldn’t have the neighbors smelling my secret snacks and mentioning them to my father.

I had only started to pull it shut when I heard a voice that froze the blood in my veins.

“…just a symptom of pride, Andrew.”

My father. He was home early. His feet crunched on the gravel walkway in front of our house. He was walking up to the front steps.

_ God, help me,  _ I prayed.

I didn’t know what to do. All of my contraband, the spices, the pans, the food, were strewn around the kitchen in open view. There was no time to clean it up. The front door clicked. I was frozen, so terrified that I felt like I was about to die on the spot. I wished I could.

The silhouettes of two men, Andrew Prior and my father, appeared in the door. “But something doesn’t feel right about this,” said Andrew. “There’s…”

He trailed off, as if noticing something off. The smell of the rice in the air. Andrew Prior looked at me, and my father’s gaze followed.

“Andrew, we’ll talk about this later,” said my father.

Andrew just nodded. I wanted to scream to him, beg him for help. He was one of my father’s closest friends at work. But that meant nothing, because no one really knew my father. I thought of his daughter, the girl at the bus stop, how she seemed to be able to read my thoughts; I prayed that Andrew could read them too.

But it was just a blank stare. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, and my father closed the door behind him.

It was the longest few seconds in the world, watching my father hang up his coat and hat, hearing the echo in every step as he walked towards me. Into the kitchen. He took it all in. The cup of rice on the counter. The pop of the hot oil in the skillet. The knife and cutting board where I’d sliced the pork.

“What’s this?” he said softly. He grabbed the pot of rice. When he whirled on me, his face was red. “What is  _ this?!  _ Stealing food for yourself?”

I stumbled back, my back hitting the cabinet. I was already crying. “Dad — please — let me explain — ”

He thrust the pot at me. The hot metal stung my chest and hands and I dropped it, the contents spilling across the floor.

“Do you know what this is?” His hands moved across the counter, knocking everything aside, scattering them on the floor. All I could do was drop to my knees, trying to save something, anything. “This is  _ rank  _ with self-indulgence! You selfish, fat, greedy cow, have I taught you nothing?”

His foot connected with my stomach and I collapsed on the ground. He kicked me again, and again, and again.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I screamed.

But he wouldn’t stop. When he did, it was to yank me up by the collar and throw me against the kitchen counter. I clung to the edge as if it would save me, gasping. Normally, I knew he had a limit. A certain point at which he would falter and cease, not wanting the beating to be so bad that people noticed it on my face. But school was out for the summer — I would have a whole two months to heal from whatever wounds I received, and the thought made me sob again in terror. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I wished I couldn’t feel my body. 

He moved towards me, his steps heavy.

“Take off your shirt,” he said.

My breath hitched. “I’m not a kid anymore, you can’t make me do that — ”

“If you’re going to act like a child, I’m going to discipline you like a child,” he snarled. My eyes were squeezed shut, but I heard the slide of his belt, the vicious snap in the air. “You’ll be respected as a woman when you can  _ act like it.” _

I hadn’t had my back whipped in years. Not since the two, three years right after Mom died. When I began puberty, the whippings stopped, as my father believed it indecent for me to expose myself to anyone — even him, while he humiliated me in every other way. I’d thought I was safe. I thought it meant that I was one step closer to rising above him, one step closer to becoming a person of my own, one step closer to escape.

But it didn’t matter, did it? It never would. Wouldn’t matter how old I got. Wouldn’t matter how much I cried, how much I submit myself to get him to stop. I’d get to my knees and unbutton my shirt and grip the nearest thing that wouldn’t move, so that he couldn’t add extra lashes if my body automatically tried to make me escape and he thought it rebellion. Every time he wanted it, I would give it.

It was the path of least resistance. 

For the first time, the realization dawned on me — he’d done this to Mom.

I opened my eyes. Inches from my hand was the knife I’d used to cut the meat. I didn’t even see myself grab it. I gripped it until my hand shook, and I turned and swung my arm as hard as I could.

“NO!” I screamed.

My father jumped back. He froze, his eyes wide. 

When he looked down, we both stared in horror at the thin, shallow cut on his forearm. Not enough to damage. Barely enough to scar. Just enough to make me drop the knife.

“No,” I sobbed, “no, no, no, I’m — I’m s-sorry — ”

I stepped towards him, hoping to help him, bind his wound, anything.

But it was a mistake. He jumped back in fear, bumping into the stove. His hand wrapped around the first thing he saw, the handle of the hot iron skillet. He swung it at me like I’d swung the knife.

I hit the ground. 

It was pain unlike anything I’d ever felt. Anything I could ever describe. I screamed. The hot metal and oil ate away at the right side of my face, and when my hands instinctively flew up to cover it, the oil melted my hands. My vision was blackened on one side and blindingly bright in the other. I couldn’t hear. I could only smell burning flesh. I could only lie there and scream.

Until, suddenly, it all went away.

There was still some pain. The blisters on my hands. Some spots I could feel across my face. But the place where it’d hurt worse, the right side and my sealed-shut eye, was now, suddenly, alright again. Maybe I’d be okay. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. My sobs choked up and died out.

I opened the one eye that I still could. My father was standing above me, staring. I couldn’t tell what the expression on his face was. I wanted to say, “I’m sorry.” But my mouth wouldn’t open. I wasn’t sure why. I tried hard and winced as it pulled against a spot of skin that did hurt. I resolved to keep it closed. My father said something to me. I didn’t understand it. He knelt, helped me up, and let me lean on him as he led me upstairs.

I sat on the cold bathroom floor as he cleaned the wounds. My face, my hands. The hands hurt the worst, but he spent the least time on them, only dabbing them with a meager amount of soothing cream and wrapping them in white gauze. I whimpered in pain the whole time, like a small child. The guilt response was so fast it shocked me. How dare I make a noise to illicit self-pity. How dare I call attention to my own pain. How dare I scream when I was burned. Had the neighbors heard? Why had nobody come running? Why did I want someone else to find me and my father in the kitchen? They were my father’s thoughts, I know that now, but in the moment all I could wonder was why he said none of them aloud. I was too shocked to answer myself.

The majority of the soothing cream was spent on my face, though I didn’t feel most of it. I still couldn’t open my right eye. I reached up to try to touch the place I couldn’t feel, but my father pulled my hand away. Afterwards, he reached for the gauze, but hesitated. Perhaps he couldn’t figure out how to bind the wound. It hurt like a rusted dagger in my heart, seeing that look on his face, the innocent confusion.

“It’s okay, Dad,” I croaked, the first words since the kitchen. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Clumsy with the bindings on my hands, I took the gauze from him. I began to clean and bind the little slice on his forearm.

My father helped me change into my nightclothes and then tucked me into bed. We didn’t speak. He went downstairs and brought me dinner — unseasoned pork, bread, peas, water. He tried to feed it to me, but I couldn’t hold any of it down, so I just sipped the water slowly. He gave me painkillers that didn’t do anything but make me more nauseous.

Before he left, he helped me fix my hair tie one last time. I would have to sleep with my hair braided, to prevent it from getting in the burn. I winced as his fingers stabilized my head, and as they trailed along the good side of my face afterwards. My father’s gaze, normally so cold and hard, softened. He jerked his hand away.

“No one can know what happened today,” he whispered. “Do you know what happens to murderers, Abigail?”

I knew. They were killed. Or put in jail until they died. But I just stared.

“I don’t want that to happen to you,” said my father. Then his gaze hardened again. “But if you let slip a single word about where those burns came from, I will not hesitate to tell the authorities why I had to fight back. I’m taking you to the hospital tomorrow morning. You will tell them that you were cooking, that you tripped and fell on the stove. You will tell it, because the reputation of Abnegation itself depends on it. You try to spin the story, try to make me out to be the villain — you’re bringing down thousands of good, innocent people with you. Do you understand?”

Every word he said was like another needle pricking through my skin. I felt ice cold. I whispered, “yes.”

He nodded. Then he stood and turned out my light. “I love you, Abigail,” he said.

“I love you too,” I said.

The door closed and I was alone, sitting in the dark.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for gore description. not super long, but may still be squicky.

I didn’t sleep. How could I, really?

I wanted to die. Every second that passed, every nearly-imperceptible tick of the watch that rested on my desk, every breath was a deluge of thoughts. My worries were so tangled that I didn’t even know where to begin to unravel them, couldn’t tell one from the other, where one thing ended and another began; I wanted to toss and turn in my bed but I was in so much pain that all I could do was lie silent and still on my back with my arms by my sides, scalded palms up, burnt face tilted up to the ceiling, as if I was baring myself before a god that couldn’t be listening.

He wouldn’t listen to an almost murderer. That’s what I was, right? I’d tried to do it. In the moment, I had been so caught up in my anger about myself, anger about my mom, that I really wanted to do it. I wanted my father dead. I deserved every blister, every scratching patch of skin.

But he’d hurt Mom. I thought about what the factionless man said —  _ inertia carried her to Abnegation, and fear kept her there _ . I remembered, clear as day, the first day my father beat me. The day after her death. I’d refused to go to school, only wanting to stay home and cry. My father responded by smacking me across the face and telling me that I was a slave to self pity. I had been eight years old. He must have beaten her, too, up until the day she died. And then he turned to the next target — me. 

If I had been anywhere close to falling asleep, the next thought yanked me away. I remembered my mother’s funeral, with all the quiet Abnegation filling our house with quiet chatter, staying with us in our grief. They carried us meals on metal trays, covered with tinfoil, and cleaned our kitchen, and boxed up all my mother’s clothes for us so there were no traces of her left. I remembered the murmuring that she died from complications with another child. But I remembered something else, a snapshot memory a few weeks before her death. Standing with her in front of her dresser, watching her button her loose second shirt over the tight undershirt, her stomach flat. For the longest time, I had ignored the memory. It was a child’s, unreliable. But now it wouldn’t leave me alone.

Had my father killed her? 

Maybe not directly. Maybe he didn’t slide a knife into her heart. But I wanted to die so badly now that I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through. 

And what did that mean for me?

I winced against the burns as I turned my head to look at my alarm clock. It was two in the morning. My father was definitely asleep by now; he took pills to help him when he had a hard night, and if he was anything like me, he’d struggle to sleep with such racing thoughts too. He kept the pills with the rest of our medicine, in the cabinet at the end of the hall. I had taken them before and I knew he noticed. But unlike my habit of stealing anything else, he never mentioned it. 

Biting my lip to keep from whimpering, I pushed myself up and made my way across the room. The hallway was pitch dark. I felt my way to the cabinets. The bandages left my fingers free and the metal was cool on my skin. 

I found the pills and tucked two into the pocket of my nightgown. But before I could go back to my room, something caught my eye. A gleam of silver. The cabinet with the pills was next to the cabinet with the mirror, and as I’d opened one, my bandaged knuckles nudged aside the panel of the other. 

I inhaled. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but now it was inescapable as the dull pain under the healing cream. I had to see. I pushed the panel open all the way, and the automatic light clicked on above the mirror. 

Then I met my own gaze and had to stifle a scream. 

It was so much worse than I could have ever imagined. The left side of my face was recognizable, the same light olive, with only a few scattered spots of red blistering. But the right side was horrifying. The skin was a patchwork of white splatters and black crust, an ugly crescent shape that stretched from the center of my forehead to just below the corner of my lip. My right eye was pinched shut with raging red blisters. It was like something I might see in a nightmare. It was me. 

I shut the panel so quickly that it rattled. Then I dashed back to my room, hoping the noise didn’t cut through my father’s drug-assisted slumber. Minutes passed, only silence. 

I sat on the edge of my bed and trembled. I didn’t know what to think. Didn’t know what to do. I took the sleeping pills out, hoping to take them and force myself to stop panicking, but my hands shook so much that they fell on the ground and rolled under the bed. Lost. 

All the optimism from before was gone. A third degree burn. That must have been why I couldn’t feel it; it had eaten away into my nerve endings. I wasn’t going to be okay at all. And my father had done it to me. As I looked at my bandaged hands, rage flared in my chest. It didn’t matter what kind of reckless little cut I gave him. For the first time, I only cared about myself. 

How dare he tell me to lie! How dare he shift the blame onto me, as if by defending myself I was asking for this! And how dare,  _ how dare  _ he try to make this about his reputation, as if he was the only person in Abnegation worth protecting! He was taking me to the hospital, and I knew enough about burns from reading books to know that I might need a skin graft to cover the worst of it up. But I’d still have scars for life. What then? Would my father force me to be like the Priors’ daughter, covering up my shame in a grey scarf, for fear of grabbing attention? I wanted attention for this. I wanted everyone to know what he’d done. He’d looked at the pan before he swung, he knew what it would do, and he did it anyway. 

But the threat still lingered in the back of my mind. If I told anyone about what my father had done, he’d tell them what I had tried to do. There was no doubt in my mind that he could paint me to be the one at fault. 

I didn’t know when I began to cry, only that I did. Maybe it was a minute, maybe it was the whole night. The salt stung my wounds worse. I was shaking so hard it was difficult to breathe. I ran to my window and ripped the plastic blinds back. It was a new moon. Dark. Nothing to see. My fingers scrabbled at the windowsill, my short fingernails prying at the iron nails until the softer of the two broke and I was bleeding. I wanted it open. I wanted to feel the air. I just wanted to breathe. 

I thought, “This is what it’s like to lose your mind.”

I tried to calm myself, but it became worse. Gasping, a pressure on my chest. I ran downstairs and pushed the kitchen window, but my fingers shook too badly to undo the latch. 

Before I knew it, I was at the front door. The cool night air washed over my face and my body, and I breathed a sigh of relief that made me smile with how good it felt. 

I sat on the porch for a long time. So long that the slices of horizon, seen through the gaps in the hundreds of square grey houses, lightened into a subtle, faded lavender. The world would be awake soon. I would return to my room and rise before my alarm, catch a glimpse of the sun. I wondered what my father would say if he saw me sitting out here instead of sleeping inside. I wanted to think he would have pity and allow it. He loved me, after all. He only wanted what was best for me. 

I knew he would make breakfast for me today. Today was the Choosing Ceremony for the sixteen-year-olds, which he always attended to show support. But he already said he would take me to the hospital, so he was likely going to cancel. For me. To indulge me. Giving in to the pathetic wiles of a girl in pain. Shame began to burn my cheeks, worse than any oil could. Was I just being dramatic? Attracting attention? The burn didn’t hurt that bad. Maybe I was just faking my pain so I wouldn’t have to do chores.

As fast as the shame, fear slid into my heart like a blade. My father would never let this go. He already mocked how I cried out when his belt struck me, telling me that I needed to feel more strikes and get used to the pain. When the shock of this event died down, how would he use it against me? Would he burn me again? If I had to cover my face with a scarf, what was stopping him from scarring me more?

I couldn’t believe what I was thinking of doing. I closed my eyes and squeezed my hands to worsen the pain, trying to shock some sense into myself, but it didn’t bring me to reality so much as it reminded me that my reality was a living hell. The darkness of my vision filled with images of the factionless man, the ember and the cans, the empty streets where I felt so free.

With the scar on my face, my father had given me two options — to obey, stay silent, and confine myself to a life worse than ever before; or to tell the truth, summon the full of my father’s wrath, and land myself in jail or on death row. 

The thought of either made my stomach churn.

I stood up and returned inside, wincing from the chill of the air. I found my jacket and boots in the closet. I laced them tight, with purpose. I thought of my room and wondered if I should bring anything. But there was nothing to bring. My father had destroyed all of the things that I held close to my heart, one by one by one.

Not anymore. Today was the Choosing Day for the sixteen-year-olds, and it was the Choosing Day for me.

I stepped back outside, looked back at my home one last time, and — before I could reason myself out of it — took off running into the night. 


	5. Chapter 5

I didn’t know how long I ran, how far. 

I left Abnegation without anyone seeing me, though I knew that some of my neighbors were earlier risers and might be out at any time. But it was when I crossed into the shadows of the broken city beyond that real fear crept into my heart. The unfamiliar shapes in the darkness warned me to keep running and I did. I went until my head was spinning, dizzy, and then I ducked under the awning of a boarded-up doorway to catch my breath.

Later, when I became more accustomed to the landmarks in the slums, I would learn that I had run almost a mile before stopping. It felt like ten; nothing around me was familiar.

When light started to drag over the horizon, coloring the black buildings a more comforting grey, I got up and walked. Wasn’t sure towards what. Something, anything that would tell me where I was. Maybe I could find the factionless man from yesterday.

As I went, I caught more and more shadows in the corners of my eyes. People lingering in windows and doorways. Factionless. I was used to them staring at me like an Abnegation, with hungry, hopeful eyes. There was something different this time. 

At one point, I approached a dark alley where several men’s voices were talking. I ducked my head and hurried past, hoping they didn’t see me dart across the entrance.

The voices stopped. I heard footsteps. They were following me, three or four or more.

“Hey, Stiff,” one man said. “You got anything for us?”

“I’m sorry, no,” I said automatically, not looking back.

One of the others whistled. “Don’t be so humble, sweetheart,” he called. “Look at those hips, boys.”

I quickened my pace. “Leave me alone.”

“Show us something,” another cackled. 

“Bet that face is beautiful.”

“We’ll show you some real fun, just turn around.”

“We won’t tell your mummy and daddy.”

“Yeah, we’ll get you back home before they wake up.”

I whirled around. “I said, leave me ALONE!”

There were four. They all leapt back. One of them screamed, and like rats, they scattered. 

For a while, I stood alone in the middle of the sidewalk, breathing hard, trembling. My fists were clenched. I had been terrified, but from that fear came rage. And from that rage came — what? 

I reached up and touched my face, the part of the burn that didn’t hurt. My fingers came away covered in red and clear fluid. Blood and some other sort of drainage. Bits of my black hair had come out of its braid and stuck to my cheek. I was so horrifying that when I revealed my face, I made grown men run and flee.

A choked sob escaped my throat and I stumbled into an empty alley, crumpling in a corner. Oil and rainwater splashed onto my skirt, but I didn’t care. 

I’d made such a mistake. When I ran, I hadn’t had a goal, only the urge to escape. Maybe I should have stopped to make a plan before I decided. Maybe I would have realized how stupid and impulsive the idea was. I was sick and injured and too young to be on my own. I hadn’t eaten in almost a day and my skin was hot to the touch. I was tired, so tired, in more ways than I could name. I was too dehydrated to even cry. 

My head rolled against the cinderblock wall, and my blurred vision passed over the skies. The whole sky now was that deep, soft lavender, moving slowly towards blue. 

Like the chimes of an internal clock had rung, I felt a rush through my body. It was ten minutes before six. My father would be awake soon. Perhaps he would even push open my door early to see if I was alright. He would find the empty bed, the blood on the windowsill, the absent coat and shoes from the closet. What would he say? What would he do?

_ He loves you, you know,  _ said a voice in my head.  _ It’s not too late. He would take you back if you just returned home. _

A prodigal. My father had told me that story a thousand times. A rich man’s son took his inheritance early and ran away to spend it all, squandering it on self-indulgences like girls and gambling. But the money ran out and the son was left in poverty. He spent years as a slave, eating scraps with the pigs, before he realized his selfishness and returned home. His father welcomed him with open arms and a great feast. It was a metaphor for how God loved us humans, as sinners who rebelled against Him. And for my father, it was a lesson handcrafted for me. No matter how good self-indulgence might feel in the moment, it would never satisfy, and soon I would come running home into the loving arms of my father.

“Is that what love is?” I said. I looked at my hands and then back to the sky. “Is that really what you want from me, being there, with that monster?”

My voice hitched on the last word.  _ Monster.  _ I had never called my father any name before. He called me all sorts of names, but that was because I was rebelling. I deserved those.

I reached up. I wrapped my arms around a metal pipe and tried to get to my feet, to face the sky with more dignity. 

“What are you doing to me?” I demanded. “I didn’t want much, God, I did everything right — I tried, I really tried, and what do I get from it? Huh? If I go home, I won’t get a feast, I’ll get a goddamn whipping, and he’ll say they’re the same thing —  _ what kind of love is that?” _

A screw snapped and the pipe broke off in my arms, sending me tumbling to the ground. I feared that water might rush out and spill all over me, but there was nothing. Just a spray of rust that settled over my shaking shoulders. 

“I never asked questions. I never wanted to disobey.” I coughed and whimpered, a chill running through my body. “I just needed to feel okay, once in a while.” Another sob. “I loved him. And he did this to me.”

I waited for a response. A voice. Something like would speak to the Apostle Paul as he suffered in prison. But as the day dragged on, as the sun grew brighter and clouds began to cover the sky, darkening it again, I heard nothing. 

That was the first of many days that I would cry myself to sleep on the streets. 

* * *

A voice broke through my haze. 

“It’s a kid — she’s hurt!”

It was dark by then. From night or from storms, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. All I knew was that I was sweating and freezing at the same time, and that it was getting harder and harder for me to move. My tongue was like sandpaper. 

Two strong hands, a man’s, slipped under my body. I struggled for a moment, but then a smaller, softer hand touched my uninjured cheek. A woman’s touch. 

“Send word to Evelyn,” said the woman. “The girl needs a doctor, bad.”

“N...no,” I mumbled. I wasn’t sure what was going on. But all I knew was that I couldn’t see a doctor. They would ask my name and my father might even be waiting. “Can’t — can’t go back to the factions.”

The man lifted me. We began to move. The woman kept her hand on the back of mine as we went. “It’s alright, baby, you’re safe,” she said. “We’re not taking you back, I promise.”

“Promise,” I echoed. 

“Promise,” she replied. 

Too weak to protest, I rested my head against the man’s chest and fell sound asleep.

I dreamt of sitting in my mother’s lap, staring out at a lake big enough to be a sea. 


	6. Chapter 6

I awoke slowly, groggily.

I was lying on a lumpy sort of bed in a dark room. Under the red flannel blanket, I was wearing nothing but a threadbare t-shirt. Clean white gauze circled my palms.

Confused, I reached up. The left side of my face was covered in bandages. The bandages wrapped around half my head and were secured around my neck, loose enough that it wouldn’t choke me, but firm enough to be uncomfortable. Small square patches covered each painful spot that the bandages didn’t. My fingers grazed rough stubble where my hair used to be. My luxurious black hair, the only pretty thing about me, was gone. They’d shaved my head. They, whoever they were.

But I was too fatigued to be angry. My eyes snagged on an IV tube in my arm. I hadn’t even felt them prick me with it. Dread was the only thing I felt now, and I looked up, all around, praying that I wouldn’t see an Amity nurse walk in with my father. 

Was this a hospital? The wallpaper was peeling; the window was blacked over with paint. It couldn’t be. Outside, low voices were conversing.

“Hello?” I croaked. It took me a few tries to get the word out. The bandages almost bound my jaw shut. When I did speak, the voices went quiet.

The door opened and a silver-haired black woman stepped in. Her faded dress was Amity yellow, but she wore a blue Erudite doctor’s coat. She was factionless. I was among the factionless now.

I tried to stand up on my own, but she rushed to my side and helped prop a pillow behind my back instead. “Oh, baby,” she murmured. “How are you feeling?”

“What happened?” I asked.

“We found you in the streets. You were dehydrated and burning up with fever. We cleaned your wounds best we could, and you’ve been sleeping ever since.”

“How long was I asleep?”

“Just the night.”

I looked to the window again. Sunlight glowed in the cracks of the paint. 

I reached up to touch my bandages again. My shorn hair. I wondered if I looked just as hideous as before. Probably more. My father always said that a woman’s hair was her crown, and that I was to take care of my crown for the day I grew up and found a husband (of course, the only time that an Abnegation girl should be beautiful was as a service to her husband) but now it was gone.

“Why did you cut my hair?” I asked.

“Some of the burns reached up into your scalp, we had to shave it away to treat them.”

My fingers reached a small bandage on the right side of my head. I wondered if the hair in that place would ever grow back.

I looked up at the woman. “Am I going to have scars?”

She bit her lower lip. She knew what I was afraid of hearing. “Yes,” she replied. “We don’t have the tech to do a skin graft.”

“Is my eye okay?”

Her expression brightened a bit. “Oh, yes! You should be able to see once the bandages are off.”

At least I had that. But I still felt as if I had lost something important. I had never been particularly tempted by vanity, at least I didn’t think so. According to my father, my mortal sin of choice was gluttony. Now both sins had come together in a hideous display, on my face, on my hands, on my head, and they sealed that permanent decision — I could never go back.

“I’m factionless,” I whispered.

She nodded slowly. “But you’re not alone.”

“I feel alone,” I said.

“I know, baby. It’s hard.” Tentatively, she reached out, meeting my eyes in a silent question. I nodded, giving her permission, and her warm hand rested on my shoulder. “Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“I think I want to rest,” I said.

“Okay.”

“May I use the restroom?”

“Yes, I can help you.”

I didn’t want help. I wasn’t supposed to get it. But standing was difficult; I was hungry and fatigued beyond anything I had ever felt in my life. The nurse helped me put on a pair of threadbare slippers and led me to a connected bathroom. The lights buzzed and flickered in a way that gave me a headache. I did my business, returned to bed, and the nurse fed me saltines and applesauce that I still struggled to keep down. She gave me a little brass bell to ring if I needed assistance and promised me that someone would come as soon as they heard it.

Then I was alone again.

* * *

I stayed in the hospital wing for five days.

They changed my bandages twice a day, morning and night. This was a process. After removing each bandage, they would clean the area carefully with cool water. When blisters popped, they would carefully remove the dead skin. I was allowed five minutes to hold cold water packs to the burns (a magical feeling) before they swooped in to continue the process. To prevent infection, they applied a thick healing gel similar to the one my father had given me. Then they would stick me all over with shots, redress the wounds, and feed me several types of pain meds. The meds were my favorite part.

I regained my appetite with time and they took the IV away. But also, with time, I got bored. There wasn’t much to do. I did a lot of thinking, though it didn’t get me anywhere far. I still felt guilty. Then, afraid. My whole life, I had lived in strict accordance to a plan. I would turn sixteen, choose my faction, work in my faction, start a family in my faction, and die in my faction. My very education was structured around that plan. Now, it was gone. I was lost. I didn’t know the entirety of what that entailed; I felt as if the shock of my injury had never truly worn off. 

I asked a lot of questions. My main nurse, the elderly woman who found me and greeted me when I awoke, was called Blessing. It wasn’t her real name. I found that few people down here went by real names, or even had them in the first place. Blessing was infinitely patient with me, answering everything that she knew. 

They knew I was from Abnegation, but not my name — I didn’t give it to them anyway. They seemed to respect that. I found that I was in a factionless safehouse about two miles from Abnegation. The safehouse used to be a huge office building and was thought by the leaders of the city to be abandoned and structurally unsound. But it just appeared that way. Inside, the factionless had done an impressive job at fixing everything that neglect had broken, installing solar panels for electricity, connecting the plumbing to the city’s main waterline, building walls and floors and ceilings that were tougher than the original ones. About a hundred people lived and worked permanently in the building. The rest were people like me — people, according to Blessing, “down on their luck, maybe in need of a bandage or two, expecting mothers, new orphans. We’ll help you get back on your feet.”

I didn’t know what there was to get on your feet for, but I didn’t ask that part. 

To prevent me from going stir-crazy, the nurses brought me a “laptop” computer — a scratched, dented thing from Erudite that fit comfortably on the tray where I’d usually eat food. There were two games on there, chess and a very violent thing where the player character slaughtered bandits and dragons in fantasy towns. I stuck with chess against the computer for a while but hated it. Eventually, I gave in, and lost myself in the twisting dungeons and ethereal caves of the fantasy game.

I wondered quietly how long I would let myself stagnate. Near the end of my stay, I started walking around the floor on my own. I had neighbors, but none of whom were meant to be disturbed, so I just glimpsed them through the doors and asked the nurses questions when I could. There was an orphan boy who attempted suicide with drugs and lost the ability to move. An elderly Dauntless with dementia who couldn’t even remember their family. A pregnant girl, only a few years older than me, who had been held captive in a basement for months. Being around them broke my heart. I didn’t want to be here and waste the hospital wing’s resources any more than I already had; they should be going to people who really need it. Their scars weren’t just skin-deep. 

On the fifth morning, I asked for Blessing.

“I think I’m ready to leave now,” I told her.

Blessing looked taken aback. “Leave the safehouse?” she asked. 

I nodded. “I need to find my own place in the world, that’s all.”

“Oh, baby, no. Your burns won’t be fully healed for months.”

“They’re not infected. I can treat them myself.”

“How did you say you were? Thirteen?”

“Fifteen,” I lied.

Blessing was quiet for a while, a strange expression on her face. I tried to read it. I couldn’t then. Looking back on it, I realized it was heartbreak.

“I can’t release you for another week. That is final,” she said softly. “But in the meantime — I think there’s someone you should see.”


	7. Chapter 7

Blessing changed my bandages, then helped me dress in something more presentable than my hospital shift. A silky red Amity shirt, comfortable black Dauntless pants, my Abnegation boots. My old clothes were ruined by blood and other unpleasant fluids, but at least my boots were unharmed. 

Then she led me, holding my hand, out of the hospital wing and to a rickety stairwell. The lights were all off here, save what little filtered through the greasy windows, and I had to hold onto Blessing’s arm to keep from stumbling. Having a side of one’s face bandaged messes with depth perception, as I had come to learn. We walked up four flights and I had to stop and catch my breath twice. I apologized. Blessing massaged my shoulders while I recovered and said not to apologize anymore. I wanted to apologize for apologizing so much, but then held my tongue entirely.

The floor that we arrived on was crawling with people. Factionless of all ages and abilities bustled between rooms — not idling, like I’d seen so many do on the streets, but walking with purpose. I peered into rooms as we passed. In one, a group of young teens were wrestling and laughing. In another, several women argued over numbers and blueprints tacked to the wall. And in another yet, older folk sat in a circle and mended clothes, singing a song in haphazard harmony as they worked. It occurred to me that I had never wondered what the factionless  _ did  _ all day, only that they sat on street corners and waited for the Abnegation to pass out food. I had never considered that they could do all the things that the factions could do. Fighting. Talking. Helping. Laughing. Making progress, bit by bit.

Blessing took me to the end of a long corridor, an office with frosted glass walls. Every surface was crusted over with colorful spray paint. She had me wait in a creaky stained seat while she spoke quietly to the girl at the receptionist’s desk, who nodded, then gestured to the door. 

“If you don’t want me to be in there, then let me know. But if you feel overwhelmed at any time,” said Blessing, taking my hand again, “squeeze my hand twice and I’ll get you out quick, alright?”

“Am I in trouble?” I asked quietly.

She squeezed my hand. “No, baby, not at all.”

I held my breath as she pushed the door open. 

Inside was a conference room, a dozen or so men and women clustered around a table. Like in some of the rooms before, blueprints and maps covered the walls. A woman at the front of the group was speaking, but I couldn’t see her over the shaved heads and makeshift weapons strapped to people’s backs. When we entered, however, all of the heads turned. The woman stopped speaking.

“Hey, this is a closed meeting,” said a tattooed old man — an elderly Dauntless, exiled from his faction. “Come back later.”

Blessing inclined her chin, unfazed. “I had orders from Evelyn to come when the child was ready.”

_ Evelyn. _

That was my mother’s name.

Immediately, all of the eyes went from Blessing to me. The elderly Dauntless scowled, but nodded. He stepped back, motioning for the rest of the crowd to step back, parting down the middle.

And at the front of the room was the woman, the speaker and the leader of the meeting, partially turned away from her chalkboard, but staring right at me. She was tall. Long black hair. Prominent hooked nose. Black Dauntless pants, grey Abnegation shirt, brown Amity boots. Her face was lined, worn, thin. But I knew her, I could never forget her eyes, so much like mine. My mother, Evelyn Eaton.

“The meeting’s over,” she said, her voice faint. “Everyone, out.”

The rest of the men and women filed out of the room, giving a wide berth around me and Blessing. But I barely saw them, barely heard them. I just stared and stared and stared. 

“Abigail,” she breathed, wide-eyed, like she was as stunned as me as I was by her.

But that was impossible. She knew I was alive, but I remembered how her urn seemed to glow faintly in the morning light as it sat upon my father’s mantel, marked with his fingerprints. I remembered the day I woke to a group of grave-faced Abnegation in my father’s kitchen, and how they all turned when I entered, and how my father explained to me, with sympathy I now knew he didn’t feel, that my mother had passed in the middle of the night, complications from early labor and a miscarriage. 

_ She was pregnant?  _ I had whispered.

_ Of course she was, daughter.  _ He turned to the other people in our kitchen.  _ Just shock, of course. Bound to happen, with something like this. _

I remembered sitting with a plate full of food, in the living room, with a group of murmuring Abnegation around me, the whole neighborhood packing my house to the brim and no one saying anything that mattered to me. I hadn’t cried then. Just looked at my food. I hadn’t cried until the next day when I wanted to walk with her to school and she wasn’t there. 

And now she was here, and I cried again.

I ran to her. I crashed into her, hugging her tight. I was tall enough to bury my head in her chest.

“Mom,” I cried. “Mommy.” Like a little child.

“Abigail,” she said again, running her hand over my head. She pulled back. “Look at you.”

I hardly recognized her voice; it was lower and stronger and harder than in my memories of her, and that’s how I knew the years had changed her. Tears spilled and stung my burns under the bandages, too many things to feel, too powerful to handle. She cupped the good side of my face.

And then, suddenly, I felt nothing at all. 

“You’re supposed to be dead,” I said, flat. It was such a stupid thing to say. Not what you should say to your mother when she came back from the dead, but it was a stupid situation. 

She smiled thinly. “I know this must be...alarming for you.”

“You were here? This whole time?”

Hesitantly, she nodded. “Let me explain.”

“You left me?” 

Her eyes widened. Panic flickered across her face. “Abigail — ”

The way she said my name was strange. Uncomfortable. “You left me with him?” I whispered, my voice high. “Were you even pregnant?”

“Pregnant?”

“You — you died in childbirth, I was supposed to have a little brother — ”

She shook her head. “Abigail, listen. I wasn’t pregnant, I wasn’t close to death, I wasn’t any of those things. I had been planning to leave for a while — you know why — I needed to disappear. I thought Marcus would tell you.”

“You knew what kind of person he was, and you left me?” My fists were clenched. I was somewhere between sobbing and yelling, and I wasn’t sure where. Planning to leave?  _ Needing  _ to disappear? Thinking that my father would tell me anything?

“You’re his daughter,” said Evelyn. “You were supposed to be safe.”

I stepped back.

All the tension of the past hour, the past week, the past few  _ years  _ bubbled inside me, too much to contain, and it came out in a laugh. A strange, mechanical laugh. It scared even me. 

“Did you see what he did to me?” I pointed at the bandages on my face. “These came from him, did you know that?”

“Abigail — ”

“Stop  _ calling  _ me that!” I snapped, clenching my fists. “You thought he was  _ safe?” _

A hand rested on my shoulder and I jerked away. But it was just Blessing, coming up beside me.

Evelyn didn’t respond, just looked at me, an expression I couldn’t read upon her face. Later, I would remember it as pity. “Why don’t we sit down?” said Blessing quietly. “I’ll — I’ll go get tea, if that’s alright.”

“Thank you, Blessing,” said Evelyn.

I didn’t say anything.

I remained quiet the whole time Blessing was gone, avoiding my mother’s eyes and staring only at my hands in my lap. My blisters had begun to heal and only had a few bandages around them; it didn’t hurt too much to clench my hands into fists. I was furious. I was ashamed. I was so, so, so confused.

When Blessing returned with the tea, a comforting homemade blend that they served in the hospital wing, I cupped the worn mug in both hands, stared into the dark liquid, and let the steam brush my face. Evelyn thanked Blessing and both women sat, Blessing beside me, Evelyn before me. Evelyn sipped her tea and took a long, slow breath before speaking.

“Things are changing,” she said. “Things that are much greater than our home life. The factionless — I had to do something to help them. So I joined them. I’ve helped them come together. They’re in pain, Abigail, so much pain; I couldn’t sit by and watch anymore.”

“What about me?” I croaked. “I’m in pain too.”

Her face softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ve always been planning to find you after you chose a faction, but I suppose that happened sooner than I thought.”

“I didn’t choose. I  _ escaped _ .” My hand jerked, splashing the hot tea on my leg, but I barely felt it. The pain of burning was familiar to me now.

“But you don’t have to be alone,” said Evelyn. “You can — you can join us.”

“Join you?”

She nodded.

“I’m already factionless,” I said.

“That’s not what I mean. I mean that things that are changing, one day they’re going to ask you to pick a side. The faction system is unstable. We factionless, we’re going to change it. I think you can help us.”

I met her gaze. Neither of us blinked. I wondered what she was thinking. I let her take in my face, my angry scars, my reddened eyes. I felt a tug, a curiosity, and deep down, I wanted to know more about the change. What kind of change. When. Why. There was so much I didn’t understand and so little that I knew to be true. But at the forefront of it all was how my own mother could meet my eyes and not be struck down with guilt, not realize how she was just like my father, how she had done this to me. I had this only because I believed in her lie. Her selfish little escape. Her victim act. It made everything else seem unimportant.

“I don’t care,” I said. “I want to be alone.”

“You can’t leave,” said Evelyn. 

“I want to be alone,” I echoed.

“Don’t you know the whole city is looking for you? They’ll drag you right back to your father.”

“I want to be alone.”

Evelyn began to look desperate. “Blessing, talk some sense into her.”

It was like I was invisible. Like she couldn’t hear me. Inside, something snapped. 

I threw the mug on the floor, where it shattered.

“I want to be alone!” I screamed. “I want to be alone!”

I lost my mind. The words that came from my mouth didn’t feel like mine. At the screams, the door burst open and the elderly Dauntless stormed in, making me jump out of my seat. Evelyn tried to hold me still, but I clawed at her until she dropped me. I stumbled and landed on my knees. Someone strong grabbed me from behind.

“Take her back,” said Evelyn. She leaned against the table, her chest heaving.

“You can’t make me stay!” I screamed. “I want to be alone! Mommy — Mommy — let me go, please!”

But my mother said nothing. She let them carry me out of the room, down the halls, back to the hospital wing that was becoming a new prison.

The last thing I saw of her was a wound from my fingernails, a crescent-shaped cut on her cheek.


	8. Chapter 8

I stayed in the hospital wing for a week more, though I didn’t want to. 

They strapped me down to my bed and injected me with something that made me sleep without dreams. When I woke, I was hungry, but I’d bitten my tongue in my hysteria and it hurt to eat. Eventually, they untied me, and I spent a lot of time thinking. I climbed up into the window and curled up, leaning my head against the glass, scraping the black paint with my nail to let a little sunlight in. 

Now the worst of the pain hit. I was told that I couldn’t initially feel the pain of the worst burn because it had damaged the nerve endings, but now, it was beginning to heal. Starting now, I was to leave my burn uncovered so that the healing process wouldn’t take as long. 

But part of me didn’t care. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. And I had been saying that about various levels of pain consistently for the past few days. Every time I opened my mouth or even blinked, it would pull at the healing skin. I’d cry and spasm until they had to sedate me, or inject my face with so much numbing agent that it was impossible for me to move a muscle. It got so bad that I couldn’t move the rest of my body. It didn’t matter anymore how I tried to distract myself, even with something like self-pity; all I could think about was the pain.

Around the fifth day after meeting Evelyn, I began to feel strong enough to endure the pain and walk. I was learning quickly how to schedule my own medication, how to clean the wound on my own, how to not be nauseous when I looked at myself in the tarnished bathroom mirror. By the eighth day — the thirteenth after arriving at the safehouse — I almost felt better. It was good enough.

“I’m leaving today,” I told Blessing as she served my breakfast.

She gave me a worried look. But we had spoken about this; she had seen what happened between me and my mother; she had been unable to talk me out of what I wanted to do. 

Instead of a lecture or a plea, she reached into her skirt and pressed something into my hand. It was small and heavy and metal. Gently, she folded my fingers around it. 

“I don’t like what you’re gonna do,” she said quietly, “but I understand why you have to. If — if you ever find yourself in deeper water than you can swim, or if you just need someone to talk to, send me a message and I’ll be there. Promise.”

I looked at it. It was an old pager with a miniature keyboard. I didn’t like gifts, but I accepted this one. “Thank you.”

“You remember what I told you? How to get your feet on the ground?”

“Yes.”

“You know how to stay hidden, so they don’t snatch you up again?”

“Yes.”

She nodded. Her eyes were wet and she wiped them with her sleeves. When she hugged me, I hugged her back. 

After helping me clean my wound one last time, Blessing helped me pack. A few credits scraped together from Blessing’s own savings, meant to get me by until I found a job. Clean clothes. Enough medicine to help me heal. Some food and a water bottle. An old ID card taken from a factionless orphan, less lucky than me, found dead on the streets. The card was so banged up that the picture could have been of anyone, but the approximate date of birth put her at thirteen. Her name was listed as Jane Doe, 73-AA.

It hurt, knowing that was me now, a nobody, a child without a name, without a family, without a home. But as Blessing led me to the back door and hugged me one last time, my eyes caught on the noon sun, peering from behind the clouds. 

I would find new things to cherish, I would find a new way. I would find a home that was warm and full of people and full of food. I would have what the father of my nightmares stole away from me, what the mother of my dreams died wanting. I refused to wait for someone else’s permission to have it. And I knew it was hopeless. I really did. The second that the safehouse building disappeared from view around a corner, a now familiar dread crept into my gut. It wouldn’t be long before what happened to Jane 73-AA threatened me too.

But for the first time, I drank in the fantasy that things were going to be okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus concludes Ace: The Prodigal. 
> 
> Thank you guys for reading! I don't know if I'm going to write the other three stories, though I have a lot of ideas. If I do, they'll be posted in the same series as this one ("Divergent, but for gays"), and I'll update you guys on any plans in the author's notes of Transcendent.
> 
> Shameless promo: If you like this story and haven't read Transcendent, please dooooooo
> 
> ace gets a girlfriend
> 
> it's hella
> 
> anyway tysm for reading, please leave your comments below

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love! Let me know what you think. Or, feel free to hmu at my tumblr, saltwaffle! :)


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